day 11, tuesday 10^th august 99

The room is still hot when we wake, as is the air that pours in through the open window. We wanted a reasonably early start (say 9:00-ish) but the laundry (promised for before 9:00 a.m.) doesn't come back until 10:00. The hotel ends up costing something in the region of fifteen quid each.

Liam and Kevin set out to look for a Honda dealer to try and acquire some new headlights for the VFR. They'll meet us at the border. We head out, straight for the border, stopping for fuel. Liam and Kevin turn up here, as they've had no luck with the headlights. Kevin phones the AA in the UK, but they aren't too hopeful about getting some headlights flown to him in Romania. A phone call to Sergio from the EnduRoMania people further squashes this idea as it seems the Romanian Customs are truly awful and would take about 4 days to release the package.

The Hungarian exit border post has a long and slow moving queue when we arrive. Eventually they let us through (it takes over an hour to get through the queue) and we go across no man's land to the Romanian border post. We have to buy a visa for $23 each and I change some money while I'm there. For 100DM and $17, I get 1,300,000 Romanian Lei, mainly in 10,000 Lei notes. An incredible pile of cash...

Romanian Customs prove to be rather difficult. As our illustrious leader, we send marvin to them first. As he tells the guard why we're here & what our plans are, the man begins to finger his holster. Alarmed, marvin stands back, hands raised, but the bloke is looking at someone else, grins at marvin and calm returns. There are loads of forms to fill in and it takes an age in the very hot sun before we are finally get sent on our way. In a moment of weirdness, the guard asks Crispin "you have Army?" Fighting back the response "yes and it's better than yours", Crispin realises he means "are you in the army?", says "no" and gets sent through. The border guard asks Jim "are you English?" He says yes and the guard replies "well you have to buy a visa first, Robin Hood."

The road from the border zigzags across an open plain - presumably some sort of anti-invasion measure. As we set off, there are old women sitting next to the road with what at first looks like washing hung out to dry, but which turns out to be decorated rugs etc., for sale.

The roads are in poor condition, with both ruts and potholes. After a short while we enter the city of Arad. It's incredibly poor and run down. Many of the buildings are in a very dilapidated condition, although most are pre-communist and were obviously once attractive. The roads are partly cobbled and the cobblestones have, in many places, come up and are either missing or proud of the rest of the road surface. We get momentarily lost and end up at the end of a street where the road just ... ends. We have to follow tram tracks for about a mile to get out of that one. People and children all stop to watch us pass. Just outside the town are more street prostitutes like the ones we saw in Hungary - only these are much younger, mid to late teens and they already look worn. Bloody hell...

I am embarrassed by the stark contrast between their abject poverty and the blatant wealth that we clearly represent. As we watch our way and rumble through, their way of life is humbling. How do they manage? In the only way they can, I guess.

In a much more sombre mood, I ride on. Some of the roads outside of the towns are in pretty good condition, but whenever we go through a village or town they go to pot. Later, we learn that this is because local roads are under municipal control and they just don't have the funds for road maintenance. It comes a long way down the priority list after things like schools and hospitals. Not that they have any money for them, either.

After a long while on vast rolling plains, following lorries, trailers and so on, we come to the Carpathian mountains. They are lower than the Alps and heavily wooded. The roads become concrete and look slippery, although actually the tyres grip well - not that I'm pushing them, as by now I'm feeling quite worn out.

We stay in a guest-house in the village of Ruska, and it's pretty good. We have to share rooms. The 3 smokers in one room (three single beds in this one), the rest sharing large rooms with double beds. Hah!

The only drawback to this place is the outside toilet. It's a seep-away. In the little block out the back is a large wooden box with a toilet seat screwed to it. Under the toilet seat is a seven foot drop and then... The stench, from the effluent and the chemicals they put down there, is absolutely awful. We notice Iain isn't drinking too much in the evening and ask why. "The thought of puking in that toilet makes me want to puke" he replies. Frankly, just going in there is difficult enough.

In the evening we have an excellent meal with good beer. The EnduRoMania group have sent one of their team to be our host, a bloke by the name of Bogdan. He speaks good English and tells us much about his country, as well as being a generally good laugh. The people running the guest-house, two women, are very nice and are constantly running in and out, making sure we are all right. We get hopelessly drunk and marvin decides it would be fun to set me up with one of the women that work there. He chats to them for ages but I don't let his ambition get the better of me.

Mileage: 197